v2 G.O.A.T The Wild Card- Nominations

First topic message reminder :

The final 64 entrants into the v2 GOAT awards has been debated heavily amoung the forum since the first group two weeks ago, the mod and admin teams didnt claim to get the list perfect but that they had done their best to ensure that a variety of spors, era's and genders were represented.

Now for some people there are some glaring omissions and with the wild card option we intended to correct at least one of those omissions.

Please nominate a sports man or woman you believe should be considered for round 2, the nomination period will close at 12 noon with the wild card group of the top four nomination competing shortly after. However only the group winner will progress into Round 2 as the wild card.

Nomination below please.

mystiroakey wrote:check out bridgets world champ golds!!!!!

phwaor!

'James isn't even the greatest basketball player of all time let alone the greatest sportsman.'

But he will be.

Unless you're championing Ol' Wilt Chamberlian, or Prince Kareem, then I assume you believe Jordan was the best the sport has produced? Jordan was 35 when he won his 5th and final NBA MVP award - James has 3 already, and will inevitably catch and surpass him. You only have to look at the tears that still flood the streets of Cleveland to realize what an icon he is. Controversy creates cash - and King James is as rich as they come.

And unlike Would-be-GOAT Don Bradman, LeBron has never been 'broken by bodyline'...

Spaghetti-Hans wrote:'James isn't even the greatest basketball player of all time let alone the greatest sportsman.'

But he will be.

Unless you're championing Ol' Wilt Chamberlian, or Prince Kareem, then I assume you believe Jordan was the best the sport has produced? Jordan was 35 when he won his 5th and final NBA MVP award - James has 3 already, and will inevitably catch and surpass him. You only have to look at the tears that still flood the streets of Cleveland to realize what an icon he is. Controversy creates cash - and King James is as rich as they come.

And unlike Would-be-GOAT Don Bradman, LeBron has never been 'broken by bodyline'...

It's conjecture whether you think he will be the greatest. I don't see him surpassing Jordan. He will be right up there at the end of his career, but I don't see him as the greatest in waiting.

James also has the unfortunate tag of not performing in pressure situations. Allayed somewhat by last years finals win, but still something that tends to stick with a sportsman.

Spaghetti-Hans wrote:'James isn't even the greatest basketball player of all time let alone the greatest sportsman.'

But he will be.

Unless you're championing Ol' Wilt Chamberlian, or Prince Kareem, then I assume you believe Jordan was the best the sport has produced? Jordan was 35 when he won his 5th and final NBA MVP award - James has 3 already, and will inevitably catch and surpass him. You only have to look at the tears that still flood the streets of Cleveland to realize what an icon he is. Controversy creates cash - and King James is as rich as they come.

And unlike Would-be-GOAT Don Bradman, LeBron has never been 'broken by bodyline'...

Then we'll start up new poll called ''The Future G.O.A.T.'' and LeBron can be the first name on it.

I appreciate that that he has some MVP's but I'm pretty sure he'd give them up to have more than one NBA title. Jordan has 6. I'd rate Kobe above LeBron at this point given his dominance of the sport and 5 NBA titles. When LeBron gets to that level he might be up for consideration here.

Hi all - been reading the boards (and have particularly enjoyed these polls) for a while, but never felt needed to contribute much. Just wanted to put forward someone that's not been mentioned yet (I think!):

Anderson 'The Spider' Silva
- UFC (the pinnacle of Mixed Martial Arts) Middleweight Champion (since 2006)
- Undefeated in 16 bouts (previous record was 9)
- 10 consecutive title defenses (previous record was 6)
- Generally considered the greatest MMA fighter ever

Not sure how big MMA is on these boards, but considering the amount of exposure it gets nowadays, and the amount of money that's being pumped into it, thought he was worth a shout.

A good shout but......

Has he transcended the sport or even been a poster boy (I know how good he is but he isnt exactly a marketing mans dream).

Names who I would potentially consider before him (more down to their contribution as opposed to win column) would be:

Royce Gracie, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, GSP and maybe even Fedor.

And Jon Jones might not be far off this list in a few years - for some reason the Spider just doesnt capture my imagination.

What about Michael Carrick?

Premier League (4): 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2010–11
Football League Cup (1): 2009–10
FA Community Shield (4): 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011
UEFA Champions League (1): 2007–08
FIFA Club World Cup (1): 2008

One of the greatest midfielders of his generation and the scorer of the best long range double of the last decade. (the two against Roma in the 7-1 game)

McLaren wrote:What about Michael Carrick?

Premier League (4): 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2010–11
Football League Cup (1): 2009–10
FA Community Shield (4): 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011
UEFA Champions League (1): 2007–08
FIFA Club World Cup (1): 2008

One of the greatest midfielders of his generation and the scorer of the best long range double of the last decade. (the two against Roma in the 7-1 game)

The fact you have 5012 posts next to your name and still posted this is worrying. Or else you've got a really good sense of humor. Which I appreciate.

With respect to Kobe's achievements, he isn't even in King James' league with regards to sheer talent.

This whole tournament is based around conjecture - Lionel Messi breezed through his group on the promise of things to come. LeBron James is not merely his equal, but almost certainly his superior.

He recently passed the 20,000 point milestone - achieving the feat in almost 2 years less time than it took Jordan. Only yesterday our own Daily Mail described him as 'The Most Influential Man in America.'

He's an icon, and a great, and it's damaging to the integrity of this fine competition that he's not a part of it.

Adam D wrote:A good shout but......

Has he transcended the sport or even been a poster boy (I know how good he is but he isnt exactly a marketing mans dream).

Names who I would potentially consider before him (more down to their contribution as opposed to win column) would be:

Royce Gracie, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, GSP and maybe even Fedor.

And Jon Jones might not be far off this list in a few years - for some reason the Spider just doesnt capture my imagination.

All greats by any means, but I would still put Silva over these guys. I think at his worst, he can scrape his way through a title fight. At his best, it's the closest I've seen to someone breaking The Matrix :p.

I would have to agree he hasn't transcended the sport like some of the ones mentioned in the 64, but I think the same can be said for some of the others that have been nominated here (Jahangir Khan, and Esther Vergeer to name a couple).

The wild card group will be up and ready to vote on just after 14:00 for the rest of the day

Just to put Lester Piggott's case across in more detail here are a list of his achievements:-

11 times Champion jockey.

Rode a total of 4, 493 winners in a career that spanned six decades from 1948 to 1995 and rode his first winner at the age of 12!!

Won a total of 9 Derby's, 6 Oaks, 5 2000 Guinneas, 2 1000 Guinneas, 8 St Legers and abroad he won 3 Arc de Triomphe's in France and umpteen other classic races in that country, 3 German Derby's, 5 Irish Derby's and countless other classic races there, 3 Italian Derby's, The Breeders Cup in the USA and so much more.

His final big race win came aboard Rodrigo De Triano in the 2000 Guinneas in 1992 at the age of 57 and rode his final winner aged 60.

He was known as the 'Housewives Choice' as women having a flutter on the big races were no form experts but everyone knew Lester Piggott so that is who they bet on. He was also known within racing as 'The Long Fellow' for his unique riding style.

Simply by having a stupid name like LeBron is enough to not be considered, what is it with American sportsman and absurd names?

Carrick is like sergio busquets and Xavi rolled into one player, if only he were spanish he would have been hailed as an all time great.

Mac you forget your meds pal..

he is certainly one of the most underated players in the prem.. However i think your love has got in your way abit there

Adolfo Cambiaso

Perfect polo.

Adolfo Cambiaso is the greatest player polo has ever known. Chloe Fox meets him at the ranch in Berkshire that is his home for the English season.

Only a handful of those reading this article will have heard of Adolfo Cambiaso. If you have, you are – almost without question – a polo fan. If you haven't, in short, the 36-year-old Argentine is a phenomenon: the most talented polo player there has ever been. What Muhammad Ali was to boxing, what Messi is to football, this – and more – is what Cambiaso is to polo.

Polo players are rated by a goal-based handicapping system on a scale from minus-two to 10. At any one time there are only a handful of 10-goalers playing on the world circuit. Currently, the number is at an all- time low; only five players boast the highest handicap. Adolfo Cambiaso, the world number one for almost 20 years, was ranked a 10 when he was 17, and has remained at the same level ever since.

There isn't a polo trophy that he hasn't won. To date, he has led his teams to victory in seven Grand Slams, including five British Opens. He holds 31 Master Cup titles including the Argentine Open and US Open, 15 titles in the World Polo Tour Cup and six in the Challenge Cup. In the 1998 Argentine Open – the fiercest and highest-level polo tournament – he set the record for the number of goals scored, an astonishing 67.

Cambiaso has been married to Argentina's most famous model (now a television presenter), Maria Vazquez, for almost a decade, and they have three children (Mia, eight, Adolfo Jr, five and Mila, eight months). They will do anything to avoid the limelight, and in a world that has a (some would say damaging) reputation for high glamour and excess, Cambiaso remains under the radar.

At the star-studded, champagne-fuelled parties that follow high-profile tournaments, he will show his face and leave. A long-term relationship with the luxury watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre (one of the most prolific sponsors of the game) is about as far as he will go. Mostly the couple are together, travelling with their children on the world polo circuit until it is time for them to return home. This is La Dolfina, a 100-acre polo ranch that Cambiaso built in Cañuelas, the same region he grew up in, 30 miles south of Buenos Aires.

Cambiaso has been playing regularly in England since the age of 15. But since 2001 – when the Dubai-based billionaire entrepreneur Sheikh Ali Albwardy tempted Cambiaso to play for his Dubai team – his home, from May to July each year, has been a glisteningly neat 100-acre farm near Windsor. It is here I interview him. First, there is the small challenge of finding him. The property is a maze of mahogany and machismo (Cambiaso has a 20-strong Argentine retinue of team-mates, grooms, farriers, vets and trainers); silent eyes bore into you wherever you go; friendly questions are met with dismissive nods. Eventually, Cambiaso is located in a dimly lit common room across a stone corridor from a small, tea-stained kitchen. The only sound comes from a large television on which two tennis players are fighting it out in a qualifying round of the French Open. One of them, it turns out, is Argentine.

Fifteen minutes later, the set over, Cambiaso is ready. His friends, however, are not going anywhere. If anything, more of them arrive to watch me trying to talk to him.

In the flesh, Cambiaso is astonishingly handsome. Dressed all in black, with a shadowy stubble and a woollen beanie hat pulled down low over his brow, he is like a swarthy version of David Beckham. His English is good, but stilted and thick with accent, his voice deep and low. 'I don't know,' he shrugs in response to my first question about why, all these years on, he is still at the top of his game. 'It is very difficult for me to explain.' When pressed, he talks about his talent in detached terms. 'I just play, that's all. When I'm in the field, I always connect with what I'm doing. I can't explain it. I can't control it. It just happens.'

To those who have played for and against him, Cambiaso's skill is akin to magic. 'I've seen players looking about like goldfish wondering where the ball has gone,' laughs Peter McCormack, a friend and the director of the London Polo Club. It is not unheard of for Cambiaso, as adept when his mallet is on the backhand on the outside of the horse as he is when it is on the inside, to gallop at 40mph the entire 600ft length of a polo field bouncing the ball on his mallet before swiping it into the goal. 'I've seen opposition players riding alongside him just watching what he's doing rather than tackling him like they should be,' McCormack says.

'I practise something for three hours and he turns up and does it in a few minutes,' says Lolo Castagnola, a fellow Argentine 10-goaler who is married to Cambiaso's sister. 'I think he was born that way. It's in his genes.'

It certainly is. Cambiaso's father, also Adolfo, a lawyer who specialised in conveyancing farm sales (and is now a kitesurfing champion), was a keen player who achieved a four-goal status. His mother, Martina de Estrada, from one of Argentina's founding families, created the La Martina Polo Ranch on the family's 350-acre estate on the edge of the Pampas. It was here that Cambiaso grew up, with his sister, Camilla, and his polo-playing half-brothers, Salvador and Marcial, from his mother's first marriage. Like many Argentines, Adolfo was put on a horse before he could walk. 'In Argentina, you do what your father does,' he says. 'If your father plays football, you play football. If your father plays polo, you play polo.'

A flair for tennis saw the teenage Cambiaso teeter on the edge of turning professional. But he decided against it when he realised that it was going to be too much like hard work. 'I was too lazy,' he says. 'I was good, but it was too hard. In polo, you jump on a horse and you play. To play tennis, you have to train every day. It's your legs that do all the work. In polo, it's the horses' legs.'

To this day, Cambiaso is rigorous in his lack of preparation for the work that he does. He rarely goes to bed before three in the morning ('between midnight and 3am, that's the best time, when the world goes quiet'), sleeps late, eats what he wants, drinks what he wants. Does he train? 'Now, yes, but only because I have to because I'm getting old,' he says, nodding in the direction of a mild-looking man who turns out to be his personal trainer.
'I run every day. But that's it.'

By the time he was 12, Cambiaso had a one-goal handicap. At 14, he had set his heart on leaving school to play professional polo. An invitation to play in America opened up the world to him. 'I grew up fast,' he smiles. When he was 15, he came to play in England, where he won the British Open for the first time. 'This boy just arrived, fully formed,' the Cowdray Park commentator Terry Hanlon once recalled. 'He was playing a different level of game to everybody else.' In a matter of weeks, Cambiaso's handicap soared from seven-to nine-goal. Within a year of returning to his homeland he had become the youngest 10-goaler in the history of the game.

The High Goal polo 'season' spans the best part of a year, taking professional players on a huge global circuit from Florida (January to April) to England and Europe (May to July) and Argentina (September to December). 'I'm like a gipsy,' Cambiaso, who plays for the Crab Orchid team for the American season, shrugs. He is happy, he says, wherever he is playing polo. 'I just bring my home with me,' he says, gesturing around the room at his friends. Their families come with them too, with a tutor to oversee the children's education.

A niche pastime in England, polo (ironically first introduced by the English) is a national sport in Argentina. Here it smacks of elitism, there it is a way of life. 'It's too expensive here,' says Cambiaso, whose patron thinks nothing of spending £2 million on a season. For that reason home-grown talent is thin on the ground; of the 16 teams playing in this year's Queen's Cup, 15 of them have at least two South American players on their team. Known on the circuit as 'hired assassins', they make the game as exciting as it can be.

Yet the playing style of the South Americans has been hamstrung by a new set of rules brought in at the beginning of this season by the English governing body, the Hurlingham Polo Association. Now, when someone such as Cambiaso, who can turn his horse on a sixpence, is in possession of the ball, he must make a forward or back play. It's like telling a Formula One driver that he can only drive in a straight line.

At a second round Queen's Cup game at the Guards Polo Club just outside Windsor, Cambiaso – wearing his trademark polo helmet marked with the blue and white stripes
of the Argentine flag – is trying to work his magic. As he gallops off the pitch to change horses, he shouts at his ground crew in angry Spanish. 'He is frustrated,' his patron, Ali Albwardy, smiles. 'But this is good; it just means he is more likely to win.' Albwardy – who once said that the only two reasons for giving up polo were bankruptcy or death – takes a paternal pride in his star player. In the past, he played alongside Cambiaso but he has since handed the reins to his sons, Ali and Rashid, the latter of whom is playing today.

Cambiaso has a reputation for giving every game, wherever he is playing it, his all. But it is the Argentine season that matters most to him. For it is there that the big games are. While the English Gold Cup Final at Cowdray Park might attract a crowd of 7,000, the final of the Argentine Open at the Campo de Polo in the affluent Palermo district of Buenos Aires is played to crowds of up to 40,000. For the past decade, two teams have dominated the tournament – Ellerstina and La Dolfina.

The first was founded by the late Australian media magnate Kerry Packer, who was once Cambiaso's patron. The second is Cambiaso's own team, named after his ranch, and manned by his hand-picked high goalers. Usually unbeaten (Packer once famously promised his four players $1 million each if they could beat Cambiaso's team in the final; they failed), La Dolfina were defeated by Ellerstina in last year's Open. Boosted by the presence of Gonzalo Pieres Jr and Facundo Pieres, two of the three sons of the former great player Gonzalo Pieres, Ellerstina were at the top of their game. The suggestion that his team may have lost its superiority simply makes Cambiaso smile. 'This year, we will win again,' he says. 'I don't like to lose.'

But ultimately, it is his horses that Cambiaso cares about. 'Without good horses, you are nothing,' he says. 'In polo, it's 70 per cent horse, 30 per cent rider. And I have the best horses.' There are 600 horses at his breeding farm in Cordoba, Argentina, all of whose parentage he has chosen and whose progress he monitors closely. Every year Cambiaso's employees break in 120 horses. By the time they are two, they are being taught the basics: how to gallop, turn and stop. Between the ages of three and five, they are shown the mallet and taught how to play on the field. It is at this point that Cambiaso steps in. 'I can tell as soon as I get on a horse if it is going to be any good,' he says. 'If they are no good, I give them away.'

It's a big-money game, with the best polo ponies selling more than $100,000, and embryos of potentially world class ponies going for as much as $19,000 at auction. In the past year, Cambiaso (with the backing of Albwardy) has ventured into uncharted waters, enlisting the services of the American genetics expert Alan Meeker to clone his best horses.

'They are 100 per cent the same as their mothers,' he declares proudly, showing me a picture on his mobile phone of four identical yearling foals. For the game of polo, the implications of this are enormous; if these horses do turn out to be the exact replicas of their parents on the pitch, then a player such as Cambiaso will be able to keep one version of each of his best horses in each country that he plays, and even bring them back to life after they have died.

And then there's the money. At a recent auction, one cloned yearling foal (whose abilities cannot be known yet) sold for $850,000. But can you, I wonder, recreate the spirit of a horse, as well as its body? At this, Cambiaso shrugs. 'It's just a horse, man. It's like a machine.'

His five-year-old son is already showing signs of being talented with a mallet, and Cambiaso admits that a polo-playing future is mapped out. 'He has my name so it is a big pressure for him,' he laughs. 'I feel sorry for the poor guy if it doesn't work, but he will have to take it. That is part of life.' Similar matter-of-factness is reserved for the fate of his half-brother, a keen polo player who was recently paralysed during a game.

'That's the way it goes,' he says. For his wife who, he concedes, is 'much more famous than me in Argentina', any television work has to be restricted to the few weeks that they are in Argentina. While she works, he goes with his children to the farm in Cordoba, where 'they go out on their horses from eight in the morning until eight at night', he says. 'They are happy like this.'

After single-handedly leading his team to a narrow victory, Cambiaso jumps off his horse and flops down in a chair on the sidelines. To the other players in his team, he is kind and considerate, congratulating them on their play. While he talks, he swigs water and puts on a black hooded top, a key piece from his increasingly successful La Dolfina Polo Lifestyle clothing range. At his patron's approach, he smiles and reaches out a hand.

Together they get into a waiting golf buggy that scoots them, and the other team members, across the pitch to the presentation. It is a qualifying game and there are only a handful of supporters in the stands. The cheering is mute, until Cambiaso goes to accept his bottle of champagne, and then it surges. Putting an arm around Cambiaso's broad shoulders, Albwardy invites him for a post-match lunch at the clubhouse.

But his secret weapon simply smiles graciously and takes his leave, handing his bottle of champagne to a star-struck passer-by as he heads back towards his horses, without so much as a backward glance.

You're seriously suggesting a polo player?

Do me a lemon.

Of the sports that haven't yet had a look in...

Surfing - Kelly Slater 11 times world champ, completely and utterly dominant (bar a brief period in the early 0's when the late Andy Irons got the better of him). Well respected in surfing and beyond (not a mainstream UK sport so we tend not to hear about it).

Skiing - certainly think a skier should be in there. Not a skier or follower myself but as a lay person I remember Klammer at his peak.

Nice peice argy..

But your just talking about horses and the game of polo, not really the sportsman!!!

the game is played by less people than teeagers that go to my local college!!

Nice Cut and Paste more like.

Best of British?
Lester Piggott, no doubt.

Others:
Stenmark
Bobby Orr
Spitz

Stella wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Lennox Lewis (Possibly the greatest HW of all time)
Ben Ainslie (Probably the greatest sailor of all-time)
Jonny Wilkinson (Possibly the greatest Fly-Half of all time)
Bobby Moore (Possibly the greatest Centre-Back and leader of all time)
Fred Trueman (Possibly the greatest fast-bowler of all time)
Gordon Banks (Probably the greatest keeper of all time)

Duty - possibly the greatest patriot of all time

Carlsberg don't do patriots, but if they did...